In a major relief to Future Group, the Supreme Court on Thursday halted seizure of assets owned by Future Coupons, Future Retail and Future Group promoter Kishore Biyani.
The apex court stayed all proceedings before the Delhi High Court on Amazon’s petition seeking enforcement of Singapore emergency arbitrator’s (EA’s) award, which restrained Future group from going ahead with its Rs 24,731 crore merger with Reliance Retail.
The top court directed market regulator SEBI, National Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT) and Competition Commission of India (CCI), not to pass any order against the Future Group for four weeks.
The matter had come up for hearing before a three-judge bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice A S Bopanna.
Earlier Future Coupons Private Limited had moved the apex court seeking to stay an order passed by the Delhi High Court to attach the assets of Future Coupons, Future Retail and Future Group promoter Kishore Biyani.
A single judge of the Delhi High Court had ordered the attachment of its assets in March and had directed the Future group firms and promoters to file their affidavits giving details of their assets for violating an Emergency Arbitrator award.
The Emergency Arbitrator of Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), had on October 25 last year, restrained the Future group from going ahead with its ₹ 24,731 crore deal with Reliance Industries to sell its retail and wholesale business, and the logistics and warehousing business.
On August 6, 2021, the Supreme Court had ruled in favour of e-commerce giant Amazon against the proposed ₹ 24,713-crore merger deal between Future Retail Limited (FRL) and Reliance Retail.